Got a great idea to improve health or health care? Help make your dream a reality with the Mayo Clinic THINK BIG Challenge, sponsored by Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation, Mayo Clinic Ventures and AVIA. Entrepreneurs will compete for a total of $100,000 in awards. In addition, Mayo Clinic experts will guide winners for a year as they develop their concepts for market. Finalists will present at Transform 2015, September 30 – October 2 in Rochester, Minnesota. Apply here by August 15.

For most uninsured Americans, the motivation for checking out the health insurance exchanges is simple – they could face stiff penalties if they don’t sign up. For Native Americans, the decision is more complicated.
Longstanding treaties wi…

When the federal health law takes effect in January, some 30 million more Americans are expected to have health insurance, many for the first time. An already critical shortage of primary care providers may make a doctor’s appointment hard to com…

A hallmark of President Obama’s health law is that it requires insurers to cover early detection and disease prevention services at no cost to the patient. The new preventive care guidelines are intended to improve overall health, reduce the numb…

Consumers want to know: Will health insurance cost more, less, or about the same on the new health insurance exchanges?
Politicians, for their own reasons, have the same question about the impact of the Affordable Care Act on insurance in 2014.
Califor…

In Alabama, if you get your health insurance through your employer and you lose your job, you quickly realize there aren’t a lot options for purchasing coverage on your own. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama has had a virtual monopoly in the state …

The governors of Ohio and Arkansas, seeking a way around conservative state legislators who refuse to expand Medicaid, want to insure some of their poorest residents using a market-based approach.
The federal government appears likely to allow Republic…

RALEIGH, N.C. – Carol Steckel sides with the governors who have decided not to expand Medicaid. Newly appointed head of North Carolina’s Medicaid program, she will oversee a top-to-bottom internal overhaul. A recent state audit showed the state’s $13 billion Medicaid program spent more on administrative costs than nine other states with similarly sized programs. North Carolina is Steckel’s third state post overseeing federal health programs. She was chief of federal health law implementation for Louisiana and led Alabama’s Medicaid program from 1988-1992 and again from 2003-2010.

To make healthcare available to all the new patients who will be covered by the 2014 expansion, states are trying to loosen scope of practice laws that prevent nurse practitioners from playing the lead role in providing basic health services.

Technology and access are two objectives, which have come together in new and disruptive ways to change the primary care landscape. Please join us on Friday, September 18 at the Global Center for Health Innovation, Cleveland. Click here to learn more!